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Fried Shad
After the shad is cleaned and washed split it down the back, cut out the backbone, divide the fish into pieces about three or four inches square, and lay them on a clean dry cloth. Have in readiness a drippingpan, or a large fryingpan containing hot fat one-half inch deep, roll the fish in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, put it into the fat when smoking hot and fry it brown on both sides; use a broad spatula or cake turner to turn over the pieces in order to preserve them entire. As quickly as the pieces brown lift them out of the pan, lay them on brown paper for a moment to free them from fat, and then turn them on to a hot dish. Serve with lemons, pickles or cucumbers.
A straightforward shallow fry that depends almost entirely on the fat being hot enough before the fish goes in. The chief difficulty is not the cooking but the fish itself.
- The bones are the real problemAmerican shad carries several rows of floating intramuscular bones that no amount of splitting and backbone removal will reach, and boning a shad is a trade skill that has largely disappeared. Ask specifically for a boned fillet, or accept that diners will be picking bones out of every piece.
- Fat temperature"Smoking hot" was written for lard or beef drippings. Use a neutral oil with a high smoke point and bring it to about 365F, at which point flour dusted on the surface sizzles immediately. Oil actually smoking is past its useful range and will taste of it.
- Half an inch of fatThis is shallow frying, not deep frying. The pieces sit on the pan bottom and are turned once, which is why the recipe insists on a broad spatula.
- TimingThree- to four-inch squares of shad need roughly three minutes a side. Shad is oily and forgiving of browning but dries out quickly once the flesh flakes freely.
- DrippingpanThe roasting pan of the period, wide and shallow with low sides. Any heavy skillet or wide sauté pan does the same job; the point is surface area so the pieces are not crowded.
- Brown paperGrocery-bag paper, the standard blotter before paper towels. Paper towels on a rack work better, since a rack stops the underside steaming.
- SourcingShad runs have declined sharply and several Atlantic states have closed or restricted the fishery, so wild shad is seasonal and regional at best. Bluefish, mackerel or another oily fillet takes the same treatment.
- YieldA whole shad of three to four pounds gives four to six main-course portions once cleaned and split.
Shad was the great spring fish of the American Atlantic seaboard, running up the Hudson, Delaware and Connecticut rivers in such numbers through the nineteenth century that planked shad and shad-roe breakfasts marked the turn of the season in New York the way asparagus did in the vegetable market. A book aimed at both hotel and home cooks could assume the reader knew the fish and its notorious bones. The species name, Alosa sapidissima, pairs the genus of the shads and herrings with a word meaning "most savoury" or "most delicious," which tells you what early naturalists thought of the trade-off. Overfishing, dam building and pollution cut the runs drastically over the following century, and what was once a cheap seasonal glut is now a scarce and closely managed fish in most of its old rivers.